2006 News

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PAUL JOHNSON EARNS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Paul Johnson Paul Johnson, executive dean of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, has been given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Conference on Soils, Sediments and Water. The award recognizes “significant contributions to the understanding and solution of soil, sediment and groundwater pollution problems.”

Johnson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, joins George M. Rusch of Honey International and Annetta Wilson of Oak Ridge National Laboratory as the first winners of the newly established award.

The International Conference on Soils, Sediments and Water, based at the University of Massachusetts, is the foremost annual event in this area of environmental science and engineering for academia, government and industry.

Much of Johnson most notable research has focused on the physical, chemical and biological aspects of alleviating environmental contamination. He is listed as the inventor or co-inventor on 12 U.S. patents based on his research.

He was cited for, among other things, leading a research team that is the first to implement a successful full-scale engineered bioremediation system to cleanup the contaminant chemical MTBE.

Johnson is editor-in-chief of the National Ground Water Associations journal, Ground Water Monitoring and Remediation. He also serves as a consultant to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Defense, state regulatory agencies and industry. He’s been an ASU faculty member since 1994.

Released: November 28, 2006

PAUL WESTERHOFF AWARDED WATER QUALITY RESEARCH PRIZE

Paul Westerhoff Research into the future environmental implications of the nanotechnology revolution for increasing the presence of nanomaterials in rivers, streams and lakes will be supported by a $100,000 prize awarded to Paul Westerhoff, an associate professor in the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

The funding comes with Westerhoff’s recent selection as winner of the 2006 Paul L. Busch Award from the Water Environment Research Foundation Endowment for Innovation in Applied Water Quality Research.

The foundation recognized Westerhoff for his forward-looking approach to developing techniques to quantify the capability of wastewater treatment plants to remove commercial nanomaterials before water is discharged to local surface waters.

Using similar quantification tools, he also will characterize more naturally occurring biogenic nanomaterials that are produced by bacteria within biological wastewater treatment plants.

The work is “an important first step in ensuring that the water quality community has the tools and fundamental knowledge it needs to properly manage nanomaterials,” said Glenn Reinhardt, the foundation’s executive director.

Commercial nanomaterials are used in hundreds new consumer products, from cosmetics, sunscreen lotions and air fresheners to stain-resistant clothing and storage bags. While the emergence of nanotechnology is bringing advanced products and advances in science and medicine, Westerhoff says, “little is known about the impact of manufactured nanomaterials on ecosystems, the environment and human health.”

Among other things, Westerhoff’s research team will be helping the wastewater industry answer questions about how nanoparticles can be detected within bacteria and wastewater biosolids, what mechanisms can remove nanoparticles and do such particles affect biological methods of wastewater treatment.

Released: November 28, 2006

STUDENT AWARDED SEAoA SCHOLARSHIP

Trent Payne, a senior undergraduate student, has been awarded the Structural Engineer's Association of Arizona(SEAoA) scholarship for the Fall 2006 semester. Richard Dalhmann, Vice-President of SEAoA, mentions that "It was a tight vote, however among the applicants that applied, Trent was voted the top candidate for this semester."

Released: November 21, 2006

CEE STUDENTS ON TOP AGAIN

Last night the Fulton School of Engineering team competed in the semifinals of the ASU Academic Bowl and beat the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Maroon Team). They went on to compete in the finals against W.P. Carey School of Business and WON 290-285! The FSE team receives $4,500 each in scholarship and the alternates receive $1,000 each. They will receive their trophy at half time at the USC/ASU game on Saturday, November 18.

The competition took place in a KAET studio and will be aired on Sunday, November 19, 2006 at 5pm and additional times the following weekend.

TEAM
Karl Sturm - Civil Engineering
Amy Teegarden - Bioengineering
Andrew Holle - Bioengineering
Marko Manojlovic - Computer Science

ALTERNATES
Nicholas Vaidyanathan - Computer Science
Andrew Buck - Bioengineering
Kareem Kassel - Electrical Engineering
Katherine Jones - Civil Engineering

Released: September 28, 2006

BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM

The University Graduate Fellowship (UGF) Block Grant program replaces the Graduate Tuition Fellowship (waivers) program. An annual allocation of resources from the Division of Graduate Studies is provided to each academic unit to support the recruitment and retention of the very best graduate students. Typically, these resources are targeted toward the highest level graduate degrees, although master's students may be supported on a very selective basis.

In an effort to recruit and retain top Ph.D. students, the scholarship committee requested nominations from the CEE faculty for top incoming Ph.D. students. The Specialty Area Coordinators prioritized the nominations and selected one student from each specialty area. The selection was consistent with the Fulton Fellowship guidelines. We would like to congratulate the following CEE graduate students who were selected as recipients for the 2006-2007 academic year:

Hyungyoung Jang (Environmental)
Cassandra Fowler (Geotechnical)
Chote Soranakom (Structures)
Kangwon Shin (Transportation)

Released: August 28, 2006

CEE STUDENT AWARDED GRAND CANYON SECTION SCHOLARSHIP

CEE graduate student, Junbeum Kim, was selected as an award recipient for Air & Waste Management Association Grand Canyon Section scholarship. The objective of this scholarship program was to aid and encourage students who plan to enter the field of air and waste management or a related environmental field. The scholarship recipients were decided based on a technical paper competition. This award was made based on the quality of the paper, relevance of topic, organization/writing ability, quality of research plan, and technical merit. Congratulations Junbeum!

Released: August 25, 2006

HISTORICAL TRIVIA

As we prepare to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the department, it should be noted that the department is only slightly younger than the School of Engineering. In 1954, the Arizona Board of Regents authorized the establishment of the College of Applied Arts and Sciences comprising of the divisions of Agriculture, Architecture, Engineering and Industrial Education. In 1956 the first bachelor's degree program in engineering was approved. In 1958 the college's engineering division became the School of Engineering. Eight years later, it was renamed the College of Engineering Sciences, and a separate College of Architecture was established. The Department of Civil Engineering was born in 1958. In 1993, the department was renamed Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Released: August 7, 2006

PAUL JOHNSON AMONG NATION'S TOP YOUNG ENGINEERS

Paul Johnson, executive dean of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering and CEE Faculty, has been recognized as one of the nation’s top young engineers through his selection to participate in the upcoming U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium.

Released: August 15, 2006

MARIA RODEZNO RECEIVES DEAN'S SCHOLARSHIP

Maria Rodezno was recently selected as the new recipient of the Dean’s Scholarships for the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Each department in the Fulton school can select two outstanding graduate students to receive this prestigious award. Currently, Andrew Marcus is the department’s other recipient of the scholarship.

The Dean's Scholarship program is one of the programs through the Fulton School of Engineering that offers financial assistance to top engineering graduate students. This faculty-nominated scholarship allows students to maintain a dynamic research agenda that encourages creative individual work and, at the same time, promotes collaborative efforts focused around the Fulton School of Engineering. The award is $5,000 a year for three years. In order to qualify for the award a student must: be a new PhD student, work as a research associate of a department faculty, be in good academic standing, and be enrolled in at least 12 credit credits each semester.

Ms. Maria Rodezno has been a graduate student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at ASU since August 2003. She received her undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at the Catholic University of Nicaragua, graduated with honors, and ranked first in her graduation class. Maria graduated with her M.S. degree from CEE in December 2005. She was admitted into the PhD program in Spring 2006.

In class, Ms. Rodezno shows great enthusiasm in learning and research. In one of her classes, she was able to turn a class paper into a Journal Publication that was accepted for presentation at the prestigious Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington DC, January 2005. More than 9000 professionals from all over the world attended this conference.

Released: August 4, 2006

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2006 News